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Friday, July 24, 2009

CSN looks back on 'Demos' as it forges forward with new music

By Alan Sculley | Special to The Morning Call

Graham Nash puts it quite simply. Crosby Stills & Nash doesn't have to tour anymore. The trio doesn't need to record and release albums. The group is secure enough financially to retire.

But here it is summer 2009, and again, as it has been for most years during the past decade, Crosby Stills & Nash is back on the road, covering most of the United States and Europe.

"We're musicians and songwriters, and we want to communicate," Nash says. "The first thing you do when you write a new song, once it makes it past your filters, is to play it for your wife and friends and family. Then you want to play it for people on a tour."

Actually, Crosby Stills & Nash doesn't have many new songs to play. Nash's anti-war ballad, "Not In My Name," is the most recent arrival, having debuted on "Reflections," his three-CD box set covering his entire musical career and released in February.

But a new Crosby Stills & Nash CD is out. Called "Demos," it's both new and about as old as it gets for CSN.

The disc release features the demo versions of 12 songs David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash recorded for the trio's 1969 self-titled debut; for the 1970 Crosby Stills Nash & Young debut, "Déjà vu," and for various solo and duo releases of the early '70s.

"In December of '68, Crosby Stills & Nash were in New York, and we went into the studio at the Record Plant with Paul Rothschild, who had produced the Doors and Janis Joplin," Nash says. "We went in there, and that was the first time Crosby Stills & Nash had ever recorded. On the previous box set, the large square one that we put out in, what was it, '91 or something, we used one of them [the demos], I think 'Helplessly Hoping.' And we had another one."

Nash says in this interview that that song was "You Don't Have To Cry." That demo is included on the new album, except it's Stills' original solo version of the song. The actual performance he remembered was of "Marrakesh Express," and that tune leads off the "Demos" CD.

And indeed, this is the sound of Crosby, Stills & Nash, accompanied only by acoustic guitar, capturing the vocal arrangement and the three-part harmonies that became such a signature for the group four months before the song appeared on the "Crosby Stills & Nash" CD in a far more elaborate instrumental arrangement.

In any event, the "Demos" CD accomplishes the very goal Nash set for himself in putting together the album.

"My original idea that maybe people would be very interested in seeing, if not the very first time a song was put down on tape, but very early in the version and see how it flowers into the record people know and love," he says. "I thought that would be a very interesting thing."

It seems highly likely that fans will be drawn to the album for at least a few of the rarities it contains. There's Crosby's solo demo of "Almost Cut My Hair," as well as his version of the song "Déjà vu," which finishes with Crosby scatting the vocal melody as he plays the remainder of the song. "Long Time Gone," a staple of CSN and CSNY shows since it arrived on the "Crosby Stills & Nash" album is performed on "Demos" by just Crosby and Stills. Meanwhile there are several familiar solo songs, including Nash's piano version of "Chicago" and Stills' demo of his hit single, "Love The One You're With." "Music Is Love," a song that ended up on Crosby's 1971 solo debut album, "If I Could Only Remember My Name," marks an early appearance by Neil Young, who joins Crosby and Nash in singing the demo version.

Nash said he uncovered 53 early demos in his archive of recordings by the various band members. He is already working on a second album of demos culled from the remaining tracks.

"Demos" is far from the only musical project Nash has spearheaded lately. Of course, there was the box set, "Reflections," which follows a Crosby box set released in 2006. Nash has also begun work assembling a Stills box set that could include unreleased tracks from sessions he recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Eric Clapton.

The "Reflections" set traces Nash's career from its beginnings with the British pop group the Hollies, into Crosby Stills & Nash and through material he recorded for his five solo albums and four studio records with Crosby.

Nash thinks he chose a group of songs that accomplished the goals he had for the set, which he sees as document that will give present and future music fans insight into what he has been about musically.

"First of all, I hope the people enjoy it," Nash sahs. "I didn't want it to be so esoteric or out of left field that people couldn't relate to it. I'm a very simple man, as you know. To me I'm a very normal person. I do something very well, and several things rather well, but to me I'm a very normal person. And I want people to understand that I tried my best to communicate. I tried my best to make myself happy about my music. I tried my best to make my friends happy about it and my audience happy about it. I think I accomplished that."

Crosby Stills & Nash, meanwhile, have been busy selecting songs for their next CSN CD, a collection of outside material performed very much in what Nash says will be CSN's harmonized style. Recording of the CD with producer Rick Rubin is scheduled to start in the fall.

An initial list of 50 songs has been trimmed to 18, and Nash says the group will try out a few of the candidates each night on tour this summer.

"Right now we know about eight or 10 of them enough to play them live for people," he says. "So we'll be dropping [in] and changing songs] every night, putting new songs in there. So it will be very interesting."

The group's concert set, though, will mostly stick to familiar material. And the trio will perform in several settings.

"We're going to actually start acoustic," Nash says. "The first song will be with the band, but very gentle. Then me and David and Stephen will sing for six or seven great acoustic things, some new songs that we've learned, other peoples' that we're going to be doing for this Rick Rubin record we're going to record after the tour, and then a couple of other ones with the band, but gentle. Then we'll finish up the acoustic set with something like 'Southern Cross.' And we'll take a break and come back and play electric for an hour or so."